Insecure Foolishness
by Calysra
Summary: Strong-but-insecure and The-intelligent-fool collide in this collection of oneshots concerning Toph and Sokka in my favorite pairing: TOKKA. Love, conflict, betrayal, satisfaction - this collection is all inclusive.
1. Confession

She was unusually quiet and... contemplative. Her eyes flicked up towards him - as if she could see him. Her face was calm and... a little sad?

"You still haven't figured it out yet, have you?"

"Figured what out?"

She sighed. He suddenly wished he'd said something else. Anything else. Anything that might have made her smile... or made her mad. Anger was better than the sad disappointment that was evident on her face now.

"Forget it" she said, and turned away. He reached out to her and took a step.

"No, wait!"

"What?"

"I'm sorry" he said. He wasn't sure what for, but it seemed like the right thing to say. "I'm sorry. Can't you just... tell me? What is it that you want me to know?"

She turned back, eyes cast downwards, hiding behind her bangs.

"Do you really want to know?" she asked.

"Of course."

"I... I love you. I always have."

He was shocked into silence as she turned and walked away. In the doorway she turned and said "Goodbye, Sokka."

And then she was gone.


	2. Sacred Geometry

Sokka shifted anxiously in his seat. Katara nudged him in the side with her elbow and a whispered "Be still!" He glared at her before turning his eyes back to where Toph was supposed to come from.

It was a few years after the end of the war, and Toph had gone back to live with her parents. However, the gaang (and many many other people) had been invited to her sixteenth birthday party, at which Toph was supposed to sing, to Sokka's astonishment.

He immediately perked up when she came out in her flowing pale green dress. _It matches her eyes._ He thought for a split second. She strode out in front of everyone in their seats as they quieted their whispers and became still.

Slowly, the violinist began to play, a slow and sorrowful melody, beautifully rendered. Sokka almost stopped breathing as Toph began to sing.

_We are the lucky ones_

_We shine like a thousand suns_

_When all of the colour runs together_

_I'll keep you company_

_In one glorious harmony_

_Waltzing with destiny forever_

Her voice was beautiful and entrancing. It was confident and never wavered. Sokka let it wash over him in waves and heard his sister sight in ecstasy, threading her fingers through Aang's.

_Dance me into the night_

_Underneath the full moon shining so bright_

_Turning me into the light_

Slowly, the words of the song sank into Sokka's mind, and he began to frown. As her voice escalated, he heard the words "shine", "moon", and "light". It began to sink in that these were things that Toph herself could not see. His anger rose.

_Time dancers whirling past_

_I gaze through the looking glass_

_And feel just beyond my grasp is heaven_

_Sacred geometry_

_Where movement is poetry_

_Visions of you and me forever_

Were her parents really that clueless? Had they really chosen a song for her to sing that they thought sounded nice, but that she could hardly understand the concept of? "Gaze through the looking glass"? He wiggled in his seat, angry and uncomfortable and wanting nothing more than to ask her parents if they really saw her as any more than a doll or puppet.

_Dance me into the night_

_Underneath the full moon shining so bri-_

Before he could take back his action, he had stood up and cried out, "I can't stand it anymore! Mr. and Mrs. Bei Fong, why would you force your daughter to sing a song that has so much to do about sight! Have you no regards at all for her? I.."

Before the astonished couple could say anything, and before Sokka could finish, rage boiled up and over inside of Toph. He had interrupted her? Because she was blind? He'd interrupted a song meant for...

She snapped. "Sokka, you idiot! You don't know what you're talking about!" She said, abandoning her center stage to storm out the side door into the garden. The audience began to murmer and whisper among themselves, glancing uncomfortably at Sokka and looking after where Toph had vacated the room. Nobody really knew what to do. Katara scooted away from Sokka, hiding her face. Aang's face held a look of open-mouthed disbelief, much like the Bei Fong couples' did. Sokka panicked, and he ran out the door after Toph. It was suddenly extremely necessary to know why she had gotten so mad.

He looked around in the dark for a while, calling out her name in a whisper. He stumbled over an ill-placed garden rock and nearly fell on his face. He picked himself up with a mumbled curse, but fell silent when he heard a nearly silent scoff. He turned in the direction he heard it from.

"I know you're there, Toph." He said. She snorted and stomped up to him angrily.

"So what? Who cares? It's not like you can embarrass me more than you already have!" She growled.

"I..I'm sorry." He stuttered, surprised. He hadn't known she was capable of embarrassment. "I didn't mean to. I just thought it was wrong... I mean..." He had to explain himself. "The song, Toph! The song was..."

"I know about the song! Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I picked the song, and not my parents?"

He was speechless, so she went on.

"Yeah, Sokka, I picked the song. You interrupted _my _song. You stood up in the middle of my song and announced that I shouldn't have to sing it because I am blind. Do you think they don't know I'm blind? My parents? The guests? They do, Sokka!"

Struggling to find his voice, he finally squeaked out, "But why? Why that song? Why sing about things you can't see?"

She only pushed him in the chest with one hand, making him stumble, but not fall down. She looked down and away, her face screwed up in anger, the moonlight glistening on her pale green eyes and her jet black hair hanging over her face. She shook with frustration. He was so oblivous!

"Stupid..." She mumbled. Then she turned her face up to him, still angry but determined to get her point across. "I do have an imagination, you know. Maybe I sing about the moon because I want to imagine what it looks like. Spirits know you're always going on about how beautiful it is. This was my only way to get a piece of that. Did you even listen to the rest of the words? To the feeling behind the words?" She shook. He gaped at her in amazement. "I can't appreciate drawings and paintings. They're just sheets of paper and canvases. But I can appreciate beauty in words, Sokka. Words and movement. You have light and color and shape to help you. I don't. Remember that last verse before you interrupted me?"

She picked up the song at that point, effortlessly, despite her anger at him.

"Sacred geometry

Where movement is poetry

Visions of you and me... forever." She let the last couple of notes fall lower than they would have in the song, so as to finish the verse without having to sing more. "Do you get it, yet, Sokka?"

He wasn't sure what to say. He just looked at her dumbly. The moon reflected off her hair in the most beautiful way, and her eyes flashed and glinted like pale green flames. Even scowling as she was, she was gorgeous.

When he didn't answer, she only got angrier, but instead of pummel him, her body relaxed. She finally resigned. She stopped shaking, and her eyes seemed to glisten even more, until a single shining teardrop rolled down her cheek. He could only, stand, stunned, his tongue caught by some invisible force.

"The song was meant for you." She said, and quickly turned and walked away.

* * *

A bit unsatisfactory for some reason. I feel like I missed something. Oh well. I got the concept down. That's what counts.

Song is _Dark Waltz _by Haley Westenra. All due credit for it goes to her, obviously.

Why is it that in my oneshots, Sokka always has to cause her pain before she'll admit to his face that she loves him? XD


	3. How to Be Annoying 1

How to be Annoying:

As done by Sokka and Toph.

1.

"Aw, man, Sergeant Tucker just got hit in the arm. OH-HO, that was the tank!" Sokka exclaimed as the rattatat and explosions of the war movie echoed in Toph's ears. She grinned as she listened to his monologue, helping her piece together what all the sounds meant. She had to admit, if watching tv meant that she got to sit leaned against him with his shins on either side of her and his arms around her shoulders, the television wasn't so bad. It was like when Sokka read her a book, except that it had professional sound effects. And sometimes he forgot to explain something if he got too caught up in it.

"Um, guys?" That'd be Katara. She wasn't particularly enjoying the movie anyways, but there was one thing that was bothering her more than that.

"Yes, Sugar Queen?"

"Why is their skin green?"

Toph rolled her eyes but grinned knowingly anyways. "I wouldn't know, Princess."

Katara huffed, ashamed that Toph had been able to bend her question into insensitivity of Toph's blindness. "Then I'm asking Sokka."

He looked over at his sister with a face that clearly begrudged her interruption of the movie. "I changed the tint. I _like it that way._" he said seriously. Toph giggled like the way she did when they were pranking somebody. Katara just rolled her eyes and sighed. There was no arguing with them.

2.

Katara tried in vain to concentrate on her homework while the surface and air vibrated with Toph's complicated finger beat. She rounded it off with a skillful solo, and paused for a second.

"Finally..." the older girl whispered.

"Sokka I need some help in here!" The blind girl cried. The boy in blue jumped out of nowhere with a couple of metal spoons and pounded out a base as Toph lit into the wooden table with a new ferocity. Their music was impressive.

"Oh for spirits' sake!" Katara cried in exasperation, swiping her supplies off the table and escaping to her private room.

3.

"Na na na nanana!" Sokka sang.

"Batman!" Toph finished. The two of them giggled like schoolgirls.

"You guys are weird." Aang said.

4.

Aang checked his watch once again just as Katara burst through the glass doors of the building.

"You made it! Did Sokka get your five page paper printed in time?" He asked while waving her over.

Breathless, she smiled and stuck her hand into her messenger bag. "Yeah, I have it right... here." She pulled it out and looked at it with dismay. Aang ran over to her and took it out of her hand, flipping up a corner of the paper Katara had to turn in as soon as they walked into the classroom. There was a staple square in the middle of the stack, rather than in the corner.

"I'm going to kill him when I get home." She muttered.

5.

The phone to her ear, Toph talked quickly. "Yeah, yeah, I can't wait! You sound great!" She grinned at Sokka, who covered his mouth to keep himself from busting out laughing. Toph listened for a couple more seconds. "Uh-huh, seven o'clock. Don't forget, my name is Katara, and I live at..."

"Who on earth are you talking to!?" Katara yelled, barging into Sokka's room and grabbing at the phone as Toph erupted into roaring laughter. The phone flew across the room with the poor guy's confused voice trying to figure out what was going on. Sokka took advantage of his sister being distracted and grabbed it. Inbetween gasps of laughter he said "Sorry, operator, I think the date is off."

6.

"Are you almost done?" Toph asked impatiently.

"Yeah, yeah. Burning a dvd is nothing."

Toph huffed. "This better be funny. You know my ideas are usually better and it's not like I can see the finished product, anyway."

"Believe me, it'll be good."

"Okay, this has to be like the 10th FBI warning on this rental." Aang pointed out.

Katara just looked at Toph and Sokka suspiciously.

"I'm not laughing yet, Sokka." Toph said, tipping her chin up so that the crown of her head touched his chest and her eyes lined up with his, though she couldn't see him anyways.

"You don't give me enough credit." He said, as Aang sighed.

"Just admit defeat and go get the real rental dvd." The younger boy said.

7.

"Okay, you're right. This is better than your last idea. Where did you even get these anti-theft detectors?"

"You don't even want to know." He said as he finished hiding one of them into Katara's backback. She was busy getting their food in the Walmart's McDonald's. Toph just grinned as he put the bag bag in her chair.

"I can't wait until that alarm rings. Katara's gunna freak."

8.

Katara excitedly picked up her brand-new book, savoring it's smell, and slowly cracking open the front cover.

Right there on the front page was scrawled "Harry dies."

Toph almost laughed when she heard Sokka's name screamed from the other room. He jumped and looked at Toph with panic, interrupting their make out session. "What did I do?"

Toph only chuckled evilly and leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "You'll never be able to convince her that I did it."

9.

"... and I would like two chocolate Frosties, too. That'll all be to go!" The voice was electronic and crackly, coming through the microphone outside and into Aang's headset. Toph's laughter followed it.

"Sokka, all drive through orders are to go." He said.

"Make sure it's to go! In a bag!"

Aang was silent for a few seconds before he said in monotone, "That'll be 9.38, please pull up to the second window."

10.

Toph sat in a chair with her eyes staring blankly out into the living room, her fingers roaming quickly over the braille letters in her special book, her face struck with her concentration.

Katara ran up and snapped her fingers in front of Toph, since saying her name had gotten no response. Toph's hand stopped moving and she exclaimed "What?" in an annoyed tone.

"Where is the watch alarm coming from!? It's the third one to go off this morning, and it's getting annoying!"

"I don't know what you're talking about! The only thing annoying here is YOU!" Toph growled. Katara only made a frustrated sound and continued to rip the house apart to find the watch. When she was gone Toph smiled to herself.

* * *

A/N: These are just the first 10. There are 74 in all on the list. Some are a bit outdated, I'm pretty sure the one about the FBI warnings was supposed to be for VHS rentals, but I altered it for modern times.

They're all AU unless it would be otherwise mentioned. :B


End file.
